Chambers 1

Kate Chambers
ECI 645
Dr. Davis
22 April 2017
Teaching Reflection #3

I have thoroughly enjoyed participating in our Wolfpack Readers program and

feel that it has helped me grow as an educator. Some of my biggest take-aways involve

my recognition of the importance of data-driven, carefully planned lessons, the value of

reflecting on my teaching, the power of inquiry-focused intervention, and the challenges

of making a connection with our students families.

Although we use some informal literacy assessments with the developing

readers at my school, this was my first time doing such a complete battery of

assessments and using that data to make an individualized plan for instruction and put it

into place. With the large number of students I see every day at school, it can be very

hard to make literacy instruction as personalized as it should be, but this semester has

shown me the true benefit of doing so. Completing the variety of assessments allowed

me and my partner to easily identify our readers strengths and areas of need and target

instruction appropriately. By sharing our ideas in a collaborative diagnostic assessment

report and sharing our lesson plans, notes, and reflections with each other, we were

able to help each other grow and I believe that our reader made more progress as a

result. I feel much more confident now than I ever have with being able to choose and

administer appropriate literacy assessments and analyze the data to determine next

steps. Although my school does not have a formal literacy or reading coach or

specialist, I feel confident that I could step into a similar role in the future thanks to my
 Chambers 2

experience in this course. In the meantime, I feel like I could offer valuable insights to

my colleagues if they had a student who needed extra support with literacy by helping

my colleague better understand the students areas of difficulty and the options for

remediation. I recognize that it will be a challenge to transfer the great techniques I have

learned in a 1:1 setting to the small and large group literacy settings that are more

prevalent in the upper grades, but if this masters program has taught me anything, it

has reminded me the importance of being a lifelong learner and using the resources

available- online, in print, my colleagues- to problem-solve.

I have also appreciated the frequent opportunities to reflect on my teaching in

this class and throughout this masters program. It was very powerful for me to audio

record two of my lessons with my Wolfpack Reader this semester, followed by the

somewhat arduous task of transcription and reflection. By actually hearing myself

talking with my student and taking the time to transcribe our conversations, I realized

things such as my tendency to let my reader off the hook when talking about what she

is reading, instead of pushing for deeper or clearer thoughts or articulation of those

thoughts. Taking the time to listen to our lessons and look more closely at our

interactions made me realize I needed to be more intentional and deliberate with having

focused, meaningful reading conversations about my Wolfpack Reader. I am very

interested in the idea of videotaping myself teaching sometime in the near future to see

how that my intentions align- or misalign- with my actual actions in the classroom.

Something I have really tried to be more intentional about is my body language and

tone, because I have learned that students pick up on that and feed off it. Because I am

quiet and introverted by nature, it is not always easy for me to loosen up and be silly
 Chambers 3

with my students before I know them well, but I find that if I can get to that

conversational, friendly stage faster, more learning ends up happening.

Tying in with my second take-away is the power of inquiry-based reading

intervention. I always appreciated the idea of inquiry in the classroom and have enjoyed

using it for writing instruction, but it hasnt been the organizing factor for my reading

lessons. This program showed me the value of working with a student to identify his or

her areas of interest and having a focused inquiry through the process. Having the

student-selected inquiry topic of jaguars helped me to design the majority of the lesson

around my Wolfpack Readers interests, so she was more engaged than she would

have been if we had been reading a variety of a random texts. It is also brought us

closer as a team as we built a shared bank of knowledge and reading experiences over

the semester and could draw upon those ideas in our discussions. Again, I am left

wondering how I can apply this inquiry approach to my middle school classes, where I

have between 6 and 30 students in six classes, with reading levels that range from

kindergarten level to 8th grade, and grade levels from 6th to 8th. I believe it can be done

and I am interested in learning more about the research that other teachers have done

about using an inquiry-approach in their literacy classrooms.

A final take-away I had from our Wolfpack Readers program this semester is the

challenge of making a connection with our students families. When I first heard that we

were going to be working with a small group to plan and implement a Family Literacy

Night, I was honestly very excited because it was going to be a totally new experience

for me. Throughout the program we have learned about the importance of connecting

with families, and I had discussed with my schools administration my hope to help with
 Chambers 4

a family literacy night at our school in the future. I enjoyed the process of working with

my teammates to come up with ideas about what information we should present and

how we could make it engaging and memorable for our participants. We brought in

some snacks and drinks and Dr. Davis had lined up an interpreter to make our many

Spanish-speaking families feel more welcome. Everything seemed set for a wonderful

presentation, but not a single parent showed up! Needless to say, we were disappointed

and were left wondering how we could have done a better job preparing so our families

would have been able and willing to come. I can imagine that there were barriers such

as parents who had children with them or were working, and the current political climate

could have been a factor. I have experienced similar situations at my school when only

a small portion of my students come in for Open House or Meet the Teacher night and

hardly any come in for student-led conferences. I wonder what we could do in the future

to move past these barriers?

In conclusion, the Wolfpack Readers program was a challenging, empowering,

and memorable experience for me. I feel much more prepared to work with a

developing reader in a 1:1 setting and I feel inspired to take my learning and apply it to

my small group and large group settings at my current school.